Holding things “STATIC”

Over my decades, I have known so many conservatives wanting to hold onto their version of the “status quo”. Across those same years I have, also, known those who applaud themselves for pushing past that stale status quo. Each pointing at the other as the problem, needing to be fought.

Neither, in general, were then nor are now simultaneously parading their own faults. Which, unfortunately, their opposers will take hold of to hang them out to dry. Even worse is the deeply entrenched habit of not seeking out where they agree with their foe.

Richard Tokumei (pseudonum)

You see, we are not, per se, right in either direction. I have found no need to be either liberal or conservative to be, even occasionally, on the mark. Those of us moderates, who of course waffle in both directions, understand that I see the same problems in us. As I was thinking this issue over, what Richard Tokumei (pseudonym) said in his work “Monkeys on Our Backs: Why Conservatives and Liberals are both Wrong about Evolution“, dawned on or perhaps just resurfaced. In his book, Richard pointed out that no matter which group you and I are viewing the rest of the world, from within, it is easy to hear, almost only the lies. On top of that neither notices their, oddly, nesting in parts of their oppositions unattended fields of thought.

Our deeply consistent drive is to keep hold of the shared common. However, what any of us sees as “common” is not, typically, what those others identify as “orthodox”. This is the most common part of social, political, business and yes problems deeply nested in our sciences. We all have serious difficulty in allowing ourselves to, truly, see the world through their eyes.

Now I am ready to drive the nail a little further into my head. It is painful, once again, to realize how persistent we humans are at switching sides and doing so without realizing it. Those of us striving to keep humanity from painfully disrupting nature as we have known it are the new true breed of conservatives in my mind. Importantly, this isn’t a put down, but rather an all too common political and social transformation.

Any desire to get humanity to take their hands off reality isn’t the style of progressive I once knew as liberalism. Those liberals were driven to make use of our knowledge and ingenuity to change our the world and so our lives. While the conservatives were striving to hold life in it’s past and immediate fashions.

Those farmers and ranchers I grew up living around were definitely conservative Republicans and they wanted everyone to keep their damn hands off their land and out of their lives! The conservative social context I knew, back then, did similar tones and textures. I am certain that even in the few words I have voiced, you see differences in where and how those thoughts and feelings are applied to the world by the old and new style conservatives.

Let’s twist things a little further and haul President to be, Donald Trump into the mix. I wonder if Trump, either consciously or unconsciously tuned into that old school conservativism since what he espoused seems a great description of those who voted for him desire. Unfortunately, I see this as a last ditch effort to maintain thing as those things were. That last sentence was spoken with positive and fond memories and as one about to turn 60, I know a new twist in what it means to need to keep things stable. This is not static, as in unchanging, but rather that all changes are meant to keep what I see reality working as I need.

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About the author

Before 1999 I was active in mental health doing assessments, emergency interventions, psychotherapy, domestic violence group treatment, and consulting in the foster care system. Rapidly, in 1999 I was lovingly shoved in disability because of temporal lobe epilepsy. Then, in June of 2001 my left temporal lobe was chucked into a trashcan. Since then, I have been playing at reconfiguring the who I had been. I just have too many spare parts still strewn across the floor.

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2 Comments

How do you feel how about this passage from a review of Tokumei’s book, ” “Tokumei” makes the very annoying statement that Evolution is pretty easy to understand and then proceeds to misunderstand the process, sometimes wilfully sometimes not.He hates socialism with utter disdain and never fails to link the term with Liberal policies and ‘prove’ that these policies are evil. ” It’s from http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/05/29/monkeys-on-our-backs-by-richar/

My interest in, as you used his pseudonym, “Tokumei’s” short book was in his psychosocial focus and not the biological dynamics of evolution. I can not tell you that I am either right or wrong in reading this book as more about culture, social dynamics and politics than the seemingly obvious biology references. As I read Robert Trivers’, “The Folly of Fools”, I saw many of the same issues being addressed in a truer take on how to fit evolution into the psychosocial mix.